


Monster

by jellyfishline



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, spoilers for Prompto's backstory, there is comfort at the end though I'm not that evil, this one's pretty heavy guys so tread careful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 22:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10228682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: There are brighter times, times when he can relax, breathe. This isn’t one of them, but Noct is here to make things a little better.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Me: okay brain I’ve got the next chapter of my long fic and a handful of fluffy Promptis and Gladnis WIPs—what should I work on today?
> 
> My brain: (bullshit about how I’m a terrible writer and an embarrassment to my family and should probably throw myself into a ditch and die)
> 
> Me: ...angsty one-shot where I project all my insecurities onto Prompto it is
> 
> (I’m so sorry)

It’s amazing how easy it is to hate yourself when you’ve been doing it long enough. Practice makes perfect, he supposes, even when it comes to the hobby of self-hatred.

There are tricks he’s learned—little shortcuts to self-loathing, just to streamline the process. The most efficient way to turn a minor mistake into a reason why his very existence is an affront to decency. To let the world wipe their boots on his back instead of standing up for himself because hey, it’s only what he deserves. How to indulge a bad mood until it festers, spreads, until he can feel the poison in his throat even when he laughs.

(Tip: flinch when you catch yourself in mirrors. Spend hours prodding the fat disgusting bulge of your stomach as if you can flatten it with just your hands, remold yourself into a more suitable shape. Use the harshest words possible— _repulsive, ugly_ —the stronger your language the harder the words will embed themselves between your thighs. To this day they encircle his ankles like the pattern of his freckles, the scars of stretch marks.)

If you’re diligent enough, serious enough, you’ll see results before you know it. Your words will shrink, hide themselves away inside your throat. You’ll know the peace that comes with being pathetic. There’s a sick satisfaction in being a piece of shit because you never have to question who’s to blame for anything. It’s always your fault. Even the fact that you think it’s your fault is somehow your fault.

And if you ever ask for help, that’s your fault, too. Because now you just want attention, and you’re being irrational, and it’s emotionally manipulative, and see? You were worthless after all.

And it’s comforting. A constant in the world. No matter where you are, you will always be the worst person in the room. Or worse, even, for him—because he’s not even a person. He’s a _thing._ He was grown in a lab like a monster.

Fact: he is a monster.

(Remember that you are a monster. Remind yourself whenever possible. Never let yourself forget. _Never.)_

He doesn’t want to imagine what might happen if he forgot. If he slipped up, gave himself even the smallest leash—what might be growing inside him, lurking and listening and waiting for any opportunity to gain control. He doesn’t want to start blacking out and waking up with blood on his hands. He’s seen enough cop shows. He knows what happens to people with darkness inside them.

(Or worse—he wonders, what if _it_ took over and didn’t take him out in the process? What if he was _awake_ when the monster used his hands like puppet strings, and he’d have to sit behind his eyes and watch while—

He’s seen enough horror shows, too.)

So he stays up into the AM every night so he doesn’t have to dream about it—and how sick is it that he _dreams_ about it—but if he doesn’t get enough sleep than the thoughts start to follow him around in the daylight, too. People are so fragile. It would be so easy to hurt them—he could do it, too, with his guns and knives and words and hands and—every part of him is double-edged.

In the shower, he runs shaking hands over the naked juts of his skeleton. It’s so sharp, like patient claws longing to tear through his flesh, shed his human skin and unfold into some terrifying creature. Maybe he doesn’t even exist—he’s just a cover, a front, a glossy little mask around the invisible daemon that steadies his hand in every firefight, coos with every press of the trigger.

He stays in until the water is cold. Until his knees give out and he curls into a ball on the subway tile. Until Noct bangs on the door and asks if he’s gonna take all day. He wishes.

Today is a bad day. Bad day, bad year, bad _life_ —there are brighter times, times when he can relax, breathe. This isn’t one of them.

He pulls a stained motel comforter around his knees. Outside the window the lights of the town bob and weave like uncertain stars. He rests his heels on the sill and tries not to think about jumping.

How many nights has he spent like this? Perched on a knife’s edge, thoughtful, weighing his options—what to tell them, when to tell them, if he should tell them. He should, he _should_ , but every time he even thinks of broaching the subject a lump wedges itself in his throat. It’s the monster, self-preservation, disguising itself as rationality. _It’s okay_ , it tells him, _it doesn’t matter what you are as long as you’re still useful. Noct wants you, you can still help him, if you told him he’d just send you away and then what use would you be?_

It’s just an excuse. He’s just too selfish. He _likes_ things the way they are. He likes being able to smile without second-guessing it, trading dirty jokes with Gladio over the crackle of radio speakers, kicking Noct’s shins under the formica table of a greasy spoon while rain splatters the windows. You know what makes him a monster? The world’s on fire and people are dying under Niflheim’s hands every day and this is the happiest he’s ever been in his life. He has _friends_. Does it matter if the world burns, as long as he gets to feel human for a few hours every day?

It’s only at night that he really remembers what he is. Darkness strips him to the bare components. He can’t keep up the façade when everyone’s asleep but him, balanced on the edge of the world like a gargoyle. He fancies that he can feel it stirring when the sun goes down, the daemon stretching its limbs and pushing, softly, on the inside of his skull.

He has to say something.

He can feel it—the weight of _it_ , the monster and the lie heavy in his gut. It’s so wrong, so _bad_ what he’s doing to everyone. They have a right to know what they’re travelling with, the danger they put themselves in every day just being near him. At the very least, they need to know what to look for if he ever starts losing himself.

He presses his cheek against the glass. Weighs the options. Is it wrong that the thought of telling them scares him more than dying?

Not that he ever could. Kill himself, that is.

Sure, he’s thought about it. Brought up the question to himself as a possible solution—tried to treat it logically, appraise it and evaluate it as a strategy. It probably wouldn’t even count as suicide, really, since he’s not a person—more like correcting a mistake.

But he can’t. The minute he starts thinking _methods_ he gets queasy. He couldn’t even bring himself to cut off the barcode on his arm, or even try to scar it beyond recognition. Always some excuse—his parents or Noctis or some job he has to finish or—maybe it’s the monster. Maybe it’s a Magitek thing, like ‘a robot may not allow a human being to come to harm’ except instead it’s ‘an unholy abomination of science cannot terminate itself.’

Or maybe he’s just a coward. Either way, his only hope is that if it comes to it, his friends will have the sense to put him down before he can hurt anyone. By that point, whatever is left of ‘him’ would be dead anyway, right?

And sometimes… maybe he wishes that death might find him all on its own. Nice and sudden, no suffering, just some freak accident to erase what should never have existed in the first place. He doesn’t really _want_ to die, exactly. But that sure seems like the most painless solution, doesn’t it?

He digs his fingers into his palms. The pain of it—nails in little crescent-moons against his skin calms him, clears his head. He’s still strong enough to hurt himself, block out that trigger-click thirst that keeps him from settling long enough to sleep. He hasn’t lost everything, yet.

A sound shocks him almost out of the window. Saved only by quick ( _sickweird **unnatural**_ ) reflexes, he grips the sill with white knuckles. Swallows.

“Noct?” he whispers

A shadow shifts. Reshapes itself as it steps into the bar-striped light of the window. It’s Noctis, of course—bedhead and eyebags and all, bedsheet trailing from his shoulders like a cape. “You took the blanket,” the King of Lucis sulks.

Prompto looks down at his quilt-covered knees. “Oh. Whoops.”

He starts to kick it off—and stops, because suddenly there’s a hand on his thigh. Noct leans his weight into the meat of his leg, bent until he can stare right into Prompto’s face with huge dark eyes and it must be a trick Noct picked up from Ignis because Prompto feels like he’s being skinned alive, somehow. Like Noct is digging past all of his bullshit and right into the soft secret gooey center of his heart.

“What’re you doing up, anyway?” Noct asks, frowning.

Prompto’s brain takes a few seconds to stutter back to life. “Um, I. Uh. Couldn’t sleep.”

Noct doesn’t move, doesn’t nod, doesn’t say a word. Just stares.

Prompto holds his gaze until he just can’t take it anymore. He looks out at the neon across the street. It wavers, fish-eyes, even as he blinks.

“Are you coming back to bed?” From this new angle, Noct’s words fall right into his ear. Prompto tries, _tries_ not to flinch, but he must not do a very good job of it. The weight of Noct’s hand on him is impressive, steadying.

“Prompto?” Noct murmurs, and oh, gods, he sounds so _gentle_.

Prompto can’t speak. His throat hurts. He shakes his head, once. _No._

And then there’s the horrible part— _horrible_ because it makes his head spin and his heart pound and he doesn’t trust himself to breathe because—

Here’s the thing about a Noctis hug. Most people hug quick and shallow, or quick and bone-shattering, or even long and deep and desperately dear. But Noct doesn’t hug as much as he drapes himself across Prompto like a cat. He lays on him and weighs on him and sometimes nuzzles into his neck and maybe it should feel awkward, claustrophobic, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because there is nothing better than the feeling of being chosen, and that’s exactly what Noctis gives in a hug like this. He puts all of his weight into it until Prompto feels like an iron tower, like Titan, like the strongest man alive, because he is supporting Noct and Noct is holding him, hiding him in the circle of his arms, sheltered under the slippery safety of the bedsheet cape. His hair is soft on Prompto’s cheek, and he smells like morning breath and cheap shampoo, and he picks up Prompto’s hands and holds them. Just like that.

Prompto’s not sure how long they stay like this, only that he ruins it by crying. He cries and it’s like a miracle, like rain after a hundred years of drought, and a few hesitant drops are suddenly wringing him dry. It’s been so long since he was alone long enough to cry—and he’s not alone now but he isn’t nearly as embarrassed as he ought to be, because Noct is soft and whispering in his ear and patting his head and oh _gods_ Prompto has never loved anyone more.

And that’s what hurts, because he would die for Noct but he would rather live for him and either way he doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. It doesn’t matter how many good days he has in a row because there will always be nights where the monster is purring. Even now he’s still thinking of how easy it would be to tear into Noct’s throat with his fingernails and he just wants so badly to _stop._

“Hey, shh,” Noct says, and the note of panic in his voice makes Prompto cry harder. He’s so loud, disgusting—snot and tears bubbling and dripping down his face but he can’t help it, can’t stop it. He tries to hide behind his hands but Noct pries them away, tucks Prompto’s face into the crook of his neck instead. Noct’s sitting down on the sill, now, and Prompto has no idea how it happened but he’s practically in Noct’s lap. Noct rocks him just a little in his arms, like a baby, and outside the stars and the lights and the daemons sway and sway and sway.

It becomes a rhythm, after a while. A thing to tie his thoughts to while he drifts out of his head. And it’s awful, it _is_ , because it’s so constant, so solid, that Prompto almost believes he deserves it. That through all the punishment and blame there’s some part of himself that’s owed a little peace.

The tears slow. His breaths even, and Noctis rubs soothing circles between his shoulder blades. His hands are a little too earnest, clumsy. Prompto doesn’t mind.

“M’m sorry,” Prompto mumbles.

Noct breathes shakily across his neck. “Don’t apologize,” he says.

So he doesn’t. Not out loud. Keeps the remorse to himself, the amends pressed with shivering fingers into Noct’s chest, his palms flat over the faithful, unfaltering flutter of his heart.

And he’s forgotten, now, that no matter how many times he memorizes this feeling—soft clothes, rough skin, _thud-thud, thud-thud_ —he can never keep it. Memories aren’t like photographs, you can’t fold them up and keep them in your pocket for a rainy day, you can’t hold onto them without losing some part of yourself to the longing that keeps them bright in your mind. They’re brittle as bone and they can break and leave you with nothing, no tethers, no rails to keep you from falling, falling into the dark.

And he’s forgetting that these moments are fragile, that the slightest breath can shatter them into shards so sharp just looking at them cuts you to the core. He’s forgetting everything, letting it go, rewinding back as far as he can, squinting to see if there was ever a time in the past he wasn’t broken, before the pain and the lies and the monsters when the only things in his closet were shadows, when the only hopes in his heart were soft things, when he was whole and brand-new and _pure._

Because that’s what it feels like. Like that’s what Noct sees in him—the purest, brightest light. A candle he can cup his hands around, bless with the kiss of his breath, _shelter_ from everything, anything, that might snuff him out _._ And it’s funny to think, because it’s quite literally the other way around—Prompto’s job is to protect Noctis, to care for him, keep him safe and healthy and happy and it’s been Prompto’s job since before he knew what a Crownsguard was, since before he first smelled the sweet perfume of Lunafreya’s letter, since the first moment he caught the eye of the young sullen prince across the classroom and wondered _why is he sitting all alone?_

But the tables have turned, the world is unmade, the silence is molten and scalding his cheeks, pushing him forward, deeper and deeper into the refuge of comfort. And it’s selfish and it’s wrong and it’s _right_ , just for now, just for this moment, just for a second, to imagine what it would be like to be happy and deserve it.

Noct brushes the hair from his eyes with sleep-sticky hands. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Maybe he knows Prompto couldn’t answer—maybe he’s scared of the answer.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

They go back to bed, somehow. Prompto pretends he doesn’t notice the press of Noct’s hand on the nape of his neck, guiding him past the perils of the coffee table, a discarded duffle bag, the shapes that swim around them in the dark. He doesn’t let go until they’ve reached the bed and then it’s only to plump the pillows, smooth the sheets over the mattress and then slip inside the space he’s made for himself. He settles on his side, takes Prompto’s hand. Tugs.

_Join me?_ he says, with the little quirk of his lips, and Prompto is helpless, couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to from obeying the laws of gravity and monarchy and letting himself be pulled down, down, into bed beside his king.

“Better?” Noct asks. And there it is again—the little softness, shyness, his face all wrinkled up with effort, like he’s putting together a puzzle and making do with missing pieces.

Prompto shuts his eyes and breathes, big and shuddering, and when he says, “Yeah,” it’s only half of a lie. Because he knows this is temporary, that there’s no erasing the pain of the past—no reverse, no second-chances, the King is dead, the city burns, the lines are black and stark on the back of his wrist—but he is alive, and he is himself, and for all that he is, for all that he lacks, he’s not alone.

There’s a faint wet touch of lips against his forehead. “You think too much,” Noct mutters.

(And for a moment, the monster in his head is speechless.)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are my reason for living, so please drop some if you can. Also, my tumblr is [here](http://jellyfishline.tumblr.com/) if you wanna cry with me about video games and stuff.


End file.
